These poems will be featured on Metro promotional material throughout the year. Look for the poems on the exterior or the bus, in the Ride Guide, online and on transfer cards. Congratulations to the following poets!

Youth Poets

Get on the 30 to the 6

The 6 to the 20

The 20 to the Children’s Museum

Be active, be creative, be happy, be fun

EAT PIZZA!

- Tionne Weaver / Black Hawk Middle School

Dandelions are waiting for a show,

and they clap when the wind starts to blow

&

A tree is a monster with very tiny legs,

but it is so heavy that it fell to the ground,

and it's trying to reach everywhere

- Chayton Xavier Marquis / Chavez Elementary School

From Camp Randall to WidMer, and from the bike tires to the trees

Seeing all the people going places and thinking “you're nothing like me!”

Then I remember “we’re all Badgers fans!!!”

- Katherine Walsh / Our Lady Queen of Peace

You might know my
name not my story so
get to know before you
judge me <3

- Jada Shaw

My Madison is my sanctuary.

Even in February. Beautiful city dark or light, biking in the summer’s night; it gives me a sense of flight.

Never fright for Madison can be your sanctuary too.

Even in February.

- Cody Harrington / Shabazz

The breeze is coming

Cold like out of control

Get ready to grow, or

Mold old. / Nothing can stop it

But standing tall becoming

Stone as bones

- Jua Vang / Shabazz

Here in Madison we like it chill.

We keep it real as we chase the thrills.

Late nights by the lakeside,

To early mornings on brisk bike rides.

We keep the beat to keep our spirits alive.

- Natalie Cowgill / Shabazz

Seeing night at dawn

Transformation through sight.

Light is entwined and redefined

By our development over night.

- Mel Long / Shabazz

I like to move at my own pace

stay in the same state

because this is my home and I'm never alone in my Madison.

- Michael Bell / Shabazz

Oh City of Shimmering Lakes

Thronged streets of hurried cells

Spin spider webs of sights and smells

Like an insect, I scurry through your concrete veins

Catch me in your snare, oh city of shimmering lakes.

- Indigo Smith-Oles / Shabazz

Adult Poets

Walking Home Late

I don’t know why I started to cry

It might have been

the streetlamps,

something in their stance

Patient, kindly,

their faces glowing

- Marilyn Annucci

In Madison I Learned…

How to ride the bus.

Everyday is “Hippie” Christmas on earth.

Bok choy, kale, sunchoke.

To freeze peppers.

To just dry sage in a drawer.

- Matthew Stolte

On the bike path home, fleeing

downtown lights and pre-holiday terror,

I meet just one other December cyclist,

an urban cowgirl under four layers and a helmet.

We love each other suddenly, without looking up.

- Cathy Douglas

Demetrol Field, Packers Avenue

night ball, slowpitch, the smell

of dust & the day line at

Oscar’s years ago, bringing

home the bacon

- Richard Roe

you all at some point, may have noticed that in the fall

leaves begin to hit the pavement

the last leaf i saw was also the last day i saw

her

really, i must say, that i adored the way she modified my mornings

- Alex de Young

Hourglass Figure

The Isthmus sucks in her breath like my grandmother cinching a corset:

East Wash zipping up the back of her dress, the Capitol her belt buckle;

Spreading her skirts from shore to shore, Wingra a grandchild asleep in her.

- Maya R

bus coughs icy smoke

wheelchair rolls up drawbridge

thin colored plastic

- Lewis Bosworth

What is life if not this? Autumn,

flaring up like a fire

one more time

before the extinguishing

snow.

- Mary Mercier

Late November

Lake Monona is a gray slab of clay that has eaten the sky

or perhaps the gray sky has drunk the lake--

neither seems willing to give the other up

and I do not know whether to swim

or fly or simply give way to winter

- Guy Thorvaldsen

Warner Park

Summer hits me in

the face, as I step of the bus

to watch the Mallards.

- T.A. Cullen

Yahara River Tradition

Last day of summer:
5th grade tomorrow.
Basket of comic books,
ginger snaps, no BlackBerry.
Mom paddles the canoe.

- Shoshauna Shy

Evening Commute

Reflected in monochrome bus-night windows.

Tired countenances

Floating on the day’s undertow.

- Jo Scheder

Denying Autumn's chill

Still wearing shorts and sandals

Missing summer already

- Gina Chirichella

Walking my dog

along the Monona Bay

the coots are still there

- Cyndi Bryan

You asked, do I weep

Yahara swollen with rain

Even the sky cries

- Flowpoetry

Mom is Home!

Soon my boys, if you help me clear and set the table

There will be a jingle of keys,

"Mom is home!" we'll shout

Our moods, low hanging fog patches lifting

Like Cherokee at sunrise

- Alex Lalor

Your lights love me back in the middle of a brittle October night.

You are my hot yoga on a snowy day, the bike ride into the wind of all directions,